I have coveted one of these gorgeous bags since before I learned to knit as The Toft Alpaca Shop is a regular fixture at the big craft fairs. However, even after I learned to knit, I held back a bit as I discovered the bags were knitted on circular needles and you had to pick up stitches.
Finally at the February 2011 Stitch and Creative Crafts Show in Manchester, I bit the bullet and bought one of the kits in steel grey yarn. I went for the mini version because £33 seemed enough to spend when there seemed every chance I might muck it up.
The bottom of the bag was in fact really easy - a garter stitch rectangle on 10mm straight needs. On the last row, I transferred the work to my newly-acquired KnitPro10mm circular needles.
The hard part was then picking up stitches from the other three sides of the rectangle to make the rounded shape of the bag. Beforehand, I watched several You Tube videos on picking up stitches and slightly got the impression that there might be several ways of doing it. Anyway, remembering that the bag would be felted and thefore hide a multitude of knitting sins, I somehow got the full 96 stitches onto the circular needles.
The circular knitting part turned out to be quite easy. I'd gone for a 60cm cable rather than 80, which turned out to be a great size for keeping the work moving. I also got to use one of my cute glass kitty stitch markers from Atomic Knitting. I worked the flap on straight needles across 10 stitches then cast off the remaining stitches from the circular needles.
The bag handle was again knitted on straight needles and then sewn on in half to create the tube-shaped strap.
I used the leftover yarn to make a little purse, which in retrospect should have been slightly more square:
Felting the bag and the purse was a doddle. One trip around the washing machine at 40 degrees yielded an excellent results, although I had the clean the fluff from the washing machine afterwards.
As per the pattern instructions, I kept the bag stuffed with carrier bags whilst it dried and then sewed on the signature Toft button on the flap. For the purse, I added a large press stud for closure and a cute cat paw print silver button for the outside.
So, it turned out to be far easier to get my hands on one of these bags than I thought. The yarn does felt beautifully and I would definitely like to try the Toft alpaca with other patterns.
Melx
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